


A Better Place

by astrosaur



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Sexy Zone
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, beware: this fic contains androids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 14:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrosaur/pseuds/astrosaur
Summary: The life of an idol is harder than it looks, but Kento and Fuma would have never guessed what guys in their agency do to get a break from it. (Warning: Sci-fi. Bad sci-fi.)





	A Better Place

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a self-challenge to write 5 fics inspired by 5 songs in different genres. Genre 3 is Rap, song is from clipping. (This line most of all: "It's making the best of a universe far too expansive to cope with")

            “3… 2… There it is! You never change,” Fuma says as Kento convulses in laughter beside him. Their heads are touching as they watch the playback of a scene they filmed that morning, and Fuma predicts with uncanny accuracy the moment Kento does a silly twirl that some of their fans might see as passably suave.

            “What the hell?” Kento exclaims, barely comprehensible from laughing too hard. “You were filming across the room when I did this, weren’t you? Don’t tell me you were watching me the whole time!”

            “You wish.” In contrast with his words, Fuma can’t help but smile without reservation when Kento’s like this, void of all self-consciousness and face contorted like it hurts to have this much fun. “You’re just predictable. You have a tell.”

            Kento’s sadistic side emerges as he goes on the offensive. “If you know so much then… could it be? You’ve been watching me closely the whole time?”

            “You say it like it’s by choice. Don’t underestimate your symmetry partner.” Fuma brushes off the accusation, successfully looking unbothered, regardless of the fact that it feels like Tsukada’s doing continuous cartwheels in his stomach.

            “Hey guys, you’re free to go,” an assistant director comes up to them to let them know, probably assuming they hadn’t heard the announcement earlier. Never mind that they’d taken part in the congratulatory applause and waved goodbye to their three younger bandmates. “’Making of’ is packing up, they have everything they need for your wrap-up comments.”

            Kento and Fuma nod politely, thanking her once again. “We’re being thrown out,” Fuma says when she totters away out of earshot. “Stop admiring yourself and get your shit from the dressing room.”

            “You don’t have your things either,” Kento says as the two of them start off in the same direction with no prior coordination. “I bet we’re about to find _your_ shit thrown all over the place.”

            “Because Marius has no respect for his elders.”

            “Stop it, he did that when he was twelve. Your scapegoats have long outgrown their purpose.”

            Fuma actually giggles. He can’t always tell when Kento will take his side or that of their younger members. “I’m hungry,” he says, in a way that may sound random to casual listeners.

            “Thanks for the information.” Kento knows exactly what Fuma’s up to. He’s past the point of wanting to hear Fuma invite him out with an actual question, maybe since he’s so helpless that the very idea of Fuma wanting to spend time with him outside of work is enough for him. “I have Myojo with Ninomiya-kun in less than an hour,” he says, regretfully. “I brought some crackers in my bag if you want something to tide you over.”

            Fuma recognizes those words, and more importantly, what they imply. His disappointment at foiled lunch plans are instantly overshadowed. “And are those crackers supposed to—”

            Kento already regrets mentioning them, shirking from Fuma’s critical look. “I was going to eat a proper lunch after the shoot.”

            Fuma knows better than to take Kento’s word for it, never mind that the latter – to his credit – has made improvements on not starving himself as of late. He forces Kento to buy train bento boxes for both of them, going as far as accompanying him to the shoot to see with his own eyes that Kento is feeding himself. All the way, he complains loudly that baby-sitting their supposed leader is above his pay grade, and that he better be compensated for standing in as their manager’s proxy.

            Fuma loiters on location after they’ve finished scarfing down their lunches, as they get engrossed discussing whether to broach the topic of negotiating creative control on their next single. They’re trading clashing opinions on how to go about bargaining for their goals when they spot Nino passing by.

            Dutifully, they march up to Nino’s dressing room. Kento knocks on the door, but doesn’t receive a response. Fuma shrugs when Kento looks to him, and they wordlessly agree to go ahead and open the door, which Kento does with utmost caution.

            “Excuse us,” Kento sing-songs in what Fuma refers to as his dai-sempai voice. He bows as he walks in, and Fuma follows suit, saying their formal greetings in tandem. When they finally look up, they’re greeted by a very somber look on their more senior colleague’s face. “We’re so sorry to disturb you!” Kento rushes to say.

            “I’m only here because our manager thinks it’s my responsibility to make sure this one doesn’t drop dead,” Fuma adds. “I’ll be on my way soon.”

            Nino’s head turns to them, though his eyes don’t seem to really see them. They engage in something of a stand-off, with Nino staring unreadably in their general direction, and Kento and Fuma judging if Nino wants them gone.

            Fuma nearly makes it one step backward, ready to quietly disappear from the scene, when Nino takes out his phone to take a picture of the two of them without preamble.

            The two younger men in the room look to each other for guidance again, and nobody says a word as Nino checks his phone. The awkward pause is broken by a deep sigh and an enigmatic, “Human.”

            “Is everything alright?” Kento ventures carefully. “Do you want us to call the staff?”

            Nino takes a while to respond. “They’re not any better equipped. I guarantee they know less than I do.”

            For all of Nino’s sarcastic quips, neither Kento nor Fuma would never imagine him capable of deriding the staff like that. Kento opts to probe rather than scold, mindful of their hierarchy. “Have they done something wrong?”

            “They have nothing to do with it,” Nino says. “This is on me. I’m the one who lost him.”

            “Ninomiya-kun,” Kento says, out of a lack of anything else to say. Concerned but not wanting to overstep, he asks, “Should we reschedule the shoot? We can have our managers look for something that will work out for both of us.”

            “I lost Aiba,” Nino whispers. “I have to get him back.”

            “…Did something happen with Aiba-kun?”

            “Nothing ever just happens to that guy,” Nino says with a scoff that fleetingly makes him look more like himself. It’s gone as quickly as it came, and there’s nothing familiar about the way his voice crescendos to adopt a hysterical quality to it. “No, he went off to partake in the world’s worst idea for an alternative to drugs, and he left me behind to bail him out of it. No, it’s very much his fault, for fucking off and expecting me to fix this mess.”

            “He left?” Fuma verifies.

            “He left.” Nino returns to a dark, subdued tone. “Three months ago.”

            Puzzled, Fuma’s brows furrow. “What do you mean? He hasn’t been gone three months.”

            “That’s the beauty of it. They’ve got that covered, too.” Nino lays on his sarcasm thicker than ever before, and he’s set a rather high bar for himself. “While he’s off getting his brainwaves fried with fantasies, he’s got an android stand-in that honest-to-God thinks it’s human.”

            It’s a lot to unpack, between fried brainwaves and androids with identity crises. Fuma and Kento are understandably limited to staring speechlessly at Nino.

            “Aiba said he’d be back in a month, and his android or robot or whatever has no fucking clue about the program’s existence to begin with,” Nino says. “And because Aiba’s a genius, he never told anyone else about the program. Sho and the rest – when I tell them, they look like they’re trying to figure out what the punchline is.”

            “So you’re saying there’s a super realistic fake Aiba-kun, and that no one knows where the real Aiba-kun is?” Kento admirably hides all trace of doubt in his question, suspending disbelief for Nino’s sake.

            Fuma contends with a different kind of inner turmoil. He remembers a painful conversation he’d had with Shori, mere weeks ago. Shori never spoke to the group at length about his father’s passing, but he eventually approached Fuma after hitting a breaking point. Fuma’s had to contend with a few of these conversations, despite never openly inviting them the way Kento does. All he can do is try and live up to their younger members’ regard for his opinion and respect for their privacy.

            During one of those times he sought guidance for something that straddled his personal and professional life, Shori had brought up something like what Nino was describing. Shori had failed to mention the part about humanoid robots getting subbed in to keep appearances, but the part about mentally living in another reality sounds all too similar.

            With deeper knowledge of what people in their industry turn to in desperate times, Fuma is lightyears ahead of Kento in terms of understanding what’s going on, let alone believing it. “Do you know anything else about the program?” Fuma asks. He sees Kento’s head whip towards him in his peripheral vision.

            “It’s supposed to provide respite from stress,” Nino says. “You’re put into a coma, essentially, while you’re hooked up to a machine that induces dreams you tailor yourself. Masaki—” Nino wavers when he lets Aiba’s first name slip, but he continues. “He said he just needed a month at most to ‘recharge,’ and through this program, he wouldn’t interfere with group activities.”

            “How do you know the real person hasn’t returned?”

            Nino looks slightly more grounded, thanks to how seriously Fuma is taking him. “I paid people to develop this app – works almost like an x-ray.” He shows his phone to the two of them, displaying a picture of a mystified-looking Kento and Fuma, and two black dots at the bottom of the picture. “The black dots mean you’re both you.” Nino takes his phone back to flip to another picture, one of Aiba obliviously reading a magazine. There’s a red dot on the screen.

            “And you can be sure that your app is accurate?”

            “I couldn’t. I –” Nino pauses again, much longer this time. “I stabbed my best friend. Or the thing that was made to looks like him. I tied him – _it_ , I tied _it_ down. I call it Ai-bot.” Nino laughs humorlessly. “It kept screaming at me, telling me to stop. Asking why I was doing it. They make them so realistic. It’s insane.”

            Fuma holds his breath as he watches Nino. Next to him, Kento bites his lip so hard it’s on the verge of bleeding.

            Nino continues, “The bones, they’re this makeshift, metallic material… They painted it white, to make it look real, but it’s not. And… there was blood. Why was there so much blood?”

            The longer Kento looks at Nino, the more he worries that the older man is on his way to a panic attack. When he turns his attention to Fuma and sees the grave expression there, the hesitation to accept Nino’s story as plausible reality vanishes. All at once, he starts to fear the idea that this is true, that this is happening to people he knows right this moment, and he himself is in danger of hyperventilating until he remembers those black dots on his and Fuma’s picture. It’s all he has to help keep his wits about him, and it makes him launch himself at Fuma, trapping the younger man in an urgent embrace. Fuma fights him off feebly, though he could have dislodged the other if he truly put effort into it.

            Nino and Kento end up having to apologize to the Myojo staff for having to reschedule, with both participants now incapacitated.

            Before they part ways, Fuma realizes he needs to ask Nino for the app. He says this to Kento, as matter-of-fact as he can manage, about why it would be in their best interests to find out for sure how far this goes. Kento shakes his head, unwilling to believe that a critical mass of their colleagues could have gone MIA without them having suspected anything. Fuma thinks he’s about to get punched when he suggests that they need it to test the other members.

 

 

 

            There are two red dots, and one black.

            “No,” Kento says, looking over Fuma’s shoulders. “I-it’s not real.”

            With shaking hands, Fuma raises his phone to take another picture, and Kento grabs his wrist to prevent it.

            “What are you guys doing?” Sou asks, innocently curious, noticing the two of them grappling over Fuma’s phone.

            Fuma manages to snap a blurry one of Sou and Marius, which gets him one red circle, and one black. _Shori’s one of them, after all_ , he thinks. He shouldn’t be surprised, all things considered.

            “Stop it!” Kento says, more forcefully. It makes Sou and Marius frown wonderingly at them, and the three of them proceed to act as if the other two weren’t in the room. “Fuma!”

            Fuma restrains both of Kento’s wrists with one hand as he aims his camera on Sou.

            Red dot.

            _Matsushima._ _It’s_ _Shori_ _and Matsushima._

Fuma releases Kento as soon as he arrives at his conclusion. He ignores Kento berating him and stomps out the door, leaving the room in haste. He doesn’t hear Kento running after him, calling his name. He barely registers the hands on his shoulder, ushering him inside a broom closet.

            “There’s no way that thing is right,” Kento says after shutting the door behind them. “There’s no way—”

            “I failed,” Fuma cuts him off.

            “What?”

            Kento grabs Fuma’s shoulders again, willing the other to look him in the eye. “We do not know what is happening for sure. And whatever it might be, it’s not your fault. You cannot think that.”

            Fuma remains silent, only looking more troubled by the second.

            Kento wraps him up in another hug – one that’s more for Fuma’s benefit, this time, rather than his own. Kento knows he won’t be able to drag anything out of Fuma if he doesn’t want to talk, so it’s the only comfort he can offer. Fuma lets himself be held, drained of the energy it would need to break out of Kento’s insistent comforting.

            And while it’s mainly intended to comfort Fuma, Kento borrows a modicum of consolation from their physical contact, too. He rejects Fuma’s strange notion that this turn of events somehow falls on their shoulders. What he struggles most with is that two of the boys that greeted him that morning with such pleasant, normal smiles… they weren’t human. How is he supposed to convince himself that those banal exchanges came from mechanized replicas of his friends, operating on nothing but computing language?

            Fuma’s guilt is all-consuming, leaving no room for any other thought or emotion. He’d known more than anyone else in the agency, possibly more than anyone else in constant contact with Shori, the depth of Shori’s grief and the lengths he considered to relieve it. He had closed the book on the topic at the end of that conversation, never to be brought up again. And now he’s dealing with not one, but two missing members.

            Kento tells him what he thinks he needs to hear. “Even if this is true, they’ll be back. Maybe they needed a breather from all this. Shori, especially, with everything that’s happened this year.”

            “I had no clue about Matsushima,” is all Fuma can say to that, moving Kento’s hair with his rough breathing.

            Kento tightens his hold around him. “But you can’t blame yourself over that. Neither of us knew.” Quietly, he asks, “Is that our fault?”

            When Fuma forces himself to say, “it’s not,” he means, _it’s not your fault._

 

 

 

            It takes minimal effort to convince Nino that they need to break Aiba out of whatever facility he’s stashed away in, or at the very least assure themselves that he’s not being held against his will.

            With the help of a few university friends Fuma made from the computer science department, combined with Nino’s personal history with Aiba, they have everything they need to hack into Aiba’s mail and recover deleted messages. It takes time to sort through the numerous correspondences (that guy was far too friendly) and filter out distractions, no matter how interesting (Nino has strong instincts combined with poor resistance), but they manage to unearth the relevant information.

            A retrieved address takes Nino, Kento, and Fuma to a nondescript two-story building just outside of Tokyo. From the outside, it appears to be a warehouse, but the inside of it looks like a city hospital waiting room.

            The man at the reception desk recognizes Nino right away, cheerfully asking him if he’d set up an appointment with them.

            “I’m three months late, sadly,” Nino says. “I’m here to take Aiba Masaki back.”

            As cool as Nino feels when he says it, it isn’t quite enough to do the trick. It takes demanding to speak to a manager to achieve meaningful progress. A woman in a gray blazer and matching trousers walks in, and Nino bombards her with demands that she would be wise to meet, unless she wanted to deal with his more unsavory contacts.

            “The rumors about the ‘Associates’ of J&A? They’re not exaggerated,” Nino says. Kento and Fuma work hard to keep the bewilderment from creeping into their expressions.

            “I can show him to you so you can be reassured of his safety.” She gestures towards head gears that two staff members are holding, skeletal helmets with opaque visors. “I would only ask that you wear these, as we would have you respect the discretion promised to our clients. As you may imagine, we serve others like Aiba-san, and are under strict confidentiality terms.”

            “That’s fine, but you’ll take us to Sato Shori and Matsushima Sou, as well, after Aiba-kun,” Fuma cuts in. Nino regards him and Kento with a measuring glance.

            She sighs heavily before calling for yet another employee, a man who runs up to her while holding up an oversized tablet. After a few minutes, she shakes her head. “Neither of them are in my jurisdiction.”

            “But they’re enrolled in this program? Where are they?” Kento inquires.

            “Sir, I do not hold records of every single client we have in over thirty locations,” she answers, losing her patience. She turns her heel sharply and heads towards the elevators. “Once your gear is secured, our team will guide you to Aiba-san’s room.”

            Nino, Kento, and Fuma allow themselves to be strapped onto the somewhat ominous-looking apparatus, struggling minimally as they’re guided forward by invisible hands. Through their short journey, Nino packs in as many derisive comments as he can about pointless measures for secrecy. Fuma contributes his own similarly-worded thoughts from time to time, while Kento stays completely silent.

            Following an elevator ride, several steps across consecutive halls, and a swift whooshing sound signifying an automated shutting door, their vision-impairing helmets are removed from around their heads. Once they adjust to the brightness of the room, they take in the sight of one Aiba Masaki enclosed in an upright glass pod. He gives the appearance of someone sleeping, albeit in an unlikely position. Around the top of his head is a visor that branches out into about twenty tiny silicone wires that attach sensors all over his head – crown, temple, forehead.

            “Unplug it,” Nino commands them.

            The woman from the facility has not warmed up to them in the slightest. “That would not be recommended.”

            “Need me to do it for you?” Nino moves to the control panel attached to the side of the glass pod, and Kento and Fuma take less than a second to impede the movements of the staff members trying to get to him. “Shall I? Hell, if I give him brain damage, it’s my word against yours. In fact, I don’t even need my word. Destroying this guy’s already fried brain and getting the word out that you were behind it – that alone can shut down your entire operation.”

            “Don’t touch that!”

            All at once, people start screaming over each other, legitimate threats overlapping with empty, nonsensical ones. The frantic verbal collisions only serve to add to the chaos, and it takes the person in charge two tries to be heard, throwing out instructions as fast as her mouth can form them. Nino parses all the terms into meaningful direction, fingers flying over the control panel with surgical precision.

            Every single person in the room goes still as the machine lets out a whir. The door to the pod pops open, making Nino jump back to avoid receiving a thick glass panel to the face. Nino startles again when Aiba blinks his eyes open.

 

 

 

 

            Aiba’s lean rescue team helps him adjust to the sensation of walking, acting as living crutches as they make their way out of the building and into Kento’s car in a nearby lot. The walk is made long and arduous with the effort it takes to keep Aiba from falling flat on his face, but they have a lot to talk about along the way.

            At first, they listen patiently to Aiba regaling them with the details of the world he’d been mentally occupying for over a hundred days now, interspersed with shocked disbelief about how real it all seemed to him. He describes his imagined world on dimensions felt by all five senses, like he’d really just gone on a trip somewhere and his plane just landed back home. He also stops to correct himself occasionally, rephrasing his words after he’d forget himself and talk as if these fantastical events happened to him in the flesh.

            The rest of them take it all in. It isn’t until Aiba offhandedly muses that there didn’t seem to be any passage of time in that world, that Nino tells him, “You were supposed to be done months ago.”

            Aiba’s reaction to that is much more muted than Nino expected. Nino is in the middle of preparing himself to let Aiba know exactly what they did when Aiba admits, “It was hard to get out. When I was in their world, I think I… I must have lost sight of what’s real. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, I had no idea that I wasn’t really where they made it seem like I am. Does that make sense? And when that happened… There’s no way I could’ve remembered that I’m in command, that I have to release myself from what feels just like real life.”

            Kento has a troubling thought. “Why does it sound like it’s designed to keep you stuck in there?”

            “The program is nothing evil like that,” Aiba says, remarkably positive for a man that just escaped a fate of indefinite daydreaming. “There had to be some back-up plan, sooner or later. Otherwise, what would they get out of that? Now that I’ve been through it, I think I’m just not suited for such a thing. I should have never gone through with it, especially since all I did was make everyone worry.”

            “That is your specialty,” Nino sighs, figuring he has the license to be meaner than usual after all that Aiba’s put him through. “Now all I have to worry about is what to do with two Aiba’s roaming around in the wild.”

            Aiba and Nino discuss surrendering the ‘Ai-bot’ to its rightful owner, negotiating over who would pay for significant damages done on the machine. Kento and Fuma contribute modestly to the discussion, engrossed in their own thoughts.

            Even after dropping the two members of Arashi off, Kento is haunted by the idea that people could be stranded in an imaginary world of their own invention, despite Aiba’s confidence towards the contrary.

            How many of these people joined the program, having the same grip of reality as Aiba, he thinks. How many had someone who could act as an anchor, like Nino had? And even if they thought to tell someone beforehand, how many of _those_ people are as crazy as Nino, ready and willing to follow sparse breadcrumbs into the rabbit hole?

            Fuma must be on the same line of thought, because he asks Kento, “Would you tell someone, if you ever thought of going through this?”

            “I wouldn’t do it, period,” Kento says, not considering it for a second.

            Fuma makes an annoyed noise. “No one would think worse of you for wanting to take a break.”

            “Do you want to take a break?” Kento challenges.

            Of course Kento’s first instinct is to turn it into another competition. “Not right now, but who knows what’ll happen down the line?” he points out. “If I knew about this before I handed in my thesis, I can’t tell you for sure what I would’ve ended up doing. And if we knew about this when you collapsed at rehearsals, I can bet you not one person in the group would’ve said no to you doing this for at least a week or so.”

            “You want me to do this?” A hint of hurt bleeds into Kento’s shocked question.

            Fuma wants to slap him over the head, choosing now of all times to be slow on the uptake. “You’re bad enough with your idol programming, I don’t need an actual robot to replace you.”

            “You’re too kind,” he grumbles.

            “But if the time comes that it’s needed, I’ll sign you up for it myself,” Fuma warns. “The point is, we’d need to know about it. It’s not to say you’re allowed to work yourself ‘til you drop again.” It is amazing, that he can take the helm on a rescue mission from a well-hidden organization, yet he’s incapable of telling someone to their face how much they mean to him. It’s as if his mouth moves of its own accord to lighten the mood, saying, “We just need to make plans, assuming Shori and Matsushima are back. We’ll fight over who gets to take care of Bonita while you’re otherwise engaged. The obvious choice is the one she likes the best, of course.” He points to himself.

            “There’s no need to talk about it,” Kento says stubbornly. “I can’t do it. It’s hard to imagine things getting so bad that I’d need to do it.”

            “I don’t have to imagine it.” As a matter of fact, what he never told Kento was that he’d had recurring dreams not long after his fainting incident. He can still recall waking up in a cold sweat after his brain conjured up that old fairy tale about the red shoes with a life of its own, except it replaced Kento with the main character, dancing uncontrollably to his death.

            Blissfully unaware of the depth of Fuma’s memory involving that incident, Kento sighs moodily. “I already apologized for that, more than once.”

            “Think of it as me saving you from having yet another thing to apologize for in the future.”

            “At least I apologize.”

            “I apologize when I’m in the wrong. Stop being in the wrong.”

            Eventually, Kento cottons on to the fact that Fuma is intentionally grating on his nerves, just a little. “I shouldn’t bother asking you for the same, huh? For you to tell me, too, if you were ever to do this.”

            “You’re quick to make me the bad guy.”

            “Would you?” Kento presses.

            “In this hypothetical world where I neglect myself as badly as you do, enough to need extended time-off?” Fuma says. “You have my word that you’ll be informed beforehand.”

            Kento doesn’t appreciate Fuma’s delivery, but he accepts the reassurance in it.

 

 

 

            “What do we do about Shori and Matsushima?” Kento whispers to Fuma the moment he spots the other alone in the breakroom. “I’ve been using Ninomiya-kun’s app every day, and nothing’s changed.”

            “I wonder if it would be good for you,” Fuma says, not exactly as a response. “You can build a world where your mind doesn’t have to loop through every little concern you have over every little thing.”

            “You’re really trying to get rid of me.”

            “That means I’d get a break too, right?” Fuma jokes. He starts to snicker. “I’m afraid to know how your fictional world would turn out.”

            “It’d be boring as shit,” Kento says blissfully. “I haven’t thought about it much, but I don’t want anything crazy. It’ll be a plain old utopia, where our biggest problem is where to keep all our puppies – who are always clean, by the way.”

            Fuma nods in approval. “Self-cleaning pets, I like that.”

            “We still make singles and albums, but there’s no such thing as rankings or sales numbers,” Kento goes on. “We can just go onstage whenever we want, and our fans will be happy to see all of us together because they love all of us. Oh, and! I should be able to fly. Wouldn’t that be great?”

            “Not teleportation?”

            “That would be awesome, too,” Kento enthuses. “Then I can be anywhere I want to be, any time, no effort. I could go from my room, to the studio, to the café, to Hawaii, to Italy…”

            Fuma sees that far-away look that Kento gets sometimes after finishing a novel or seeing a movie. “That’s exactly why you’d need to tell us first. You’re already getting lost in your own head without the help of their technology. You’ll definitely need to get pulled out of it by force.”

            Kento snaps himself out of it. “Yeah, but you’d tell us, too. That’s the agreement. Not that it’d happen in the foreseeable future.” He tilts his head at Fuma. “What about you? What would yours be like?”

            Fuma busies himself with his phone. “What makes you think it would be different from this one?”

            “That’s unexpected,” Kento says slowly. Everything about Fuma’s aura screams _tread carefully_. “I should test you again to make sure you weren’t swapped out while I wasn’t looking.”

            Fuma pouts. “That’s why I never say anything serious. I get it thrown back in my face.”

            “It’s a vicious cycle. You don’t say those kinds of things in the first place, so when you do, it’s suspicious.” Kento indulgently slings an arm around him. “But if you were any different, it would be no good. My Fuma’s the best version, after all.”

            Fuma angles himself away from Kento, shying away. “What did we say about saving that shit for the shows and magazines?”

            “To save that shit for the shows and magazines,” Kento says. “But it’s true. I wouldn’t trade you for a Fake-Fuma, not even if Fake-Fuma could be programmed to wear his entire costume at all times.”

            “If I made changes about myself…” Fuma trails off. “If I had the power to, I might as well.”

            “Really?”

            “A small change,” Fuma mutters, almost like he doesn’t want to be heard. “Then again, it could lead to some heavier consequences.”

            Kento sits up, intrigued. Although he’s sure Fuma’s going to make a dumb joke out of it, like say that he had the power to turn whatever he touched into gummy candies or something, he throws out thoughtful guesses. “Would you get a law degree instead? Or music engineering? Debut in another unit? But still with me, of course.” What would Fuma want that he doesn’t already have?

            It takes Fuma some time to gather his thoughts, and when he does, it comes out as, “I’d make words easier.”

            “You can learn a new language right now.”

            It’s jarring to be reminded that they don’t actually share a psychic link between them. “That’s not what I meant!”

            “But then…” Kento pauses, as if everything is moving in slow motion. “Are you…?”

            “Seeing my life flash right before my eyes?” Fuma staunchly looks at everywhere except for Kento. “Yes. I am.”

            “You mean you want to… really.” Kento can’t bring himself to say it out loud, in case his interpretation is wildly incorrect. “Really…?”

            Fuma is looking equally frustrated. “You love that word so much.”

            “One of us has to say it,” Kento prods.

            “I w— I can’t. I can’t.” Any grandiose plans of saying how recent events have pushed him into finally acknowledging the undercurrents in their relationship have flown out of the window. As have several vocabulary words.

            “I’m not doing it! Come on, you started it!”

            Fuma throws his hands up, but resolves to at least form a coherent sentence. “Just… I won’t make you, but I…” He isn’t as successful as he envisioned.

            Kento takes pity on him. “Let’s do this later. I mean, not now, not at work. But if – if it’s what I think it is, then I… I wouldn’t reject anything off the bat.”

            Fuma lets out the breath he’s been unknowingly holding. All the words that escaped him earlier return to him in incoherent sequence and burst out of him without their usual respect for grammar and sentence structure. “Tonight. You don’t have plans, do you? I’m not saying you shouldn’t have plans, but. I don’t.”

            It turns out Kento is just as useless in answering as Fuma is in asking. All that bravado that gets him through the most cringeworthy line bails on him when his audience pool is reduced to one longtime friend. But just like Fuma, he manages to power through. “You’ve got plans now,” he says, nudging his hand sideways so it bumps into Fuma’s.

 

 

 

            “I thought of something else, for my world,” Kento says, as Fuma slides his bowl of ramen to him. “Thanks.”

            “That train of thought is getting dangerous.”

            Kento shrugs off his comment. “It’s related to teleporting, in a way. I was watching the cooking channel other day, and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if you could just drop in and taste what they’re cooking? I decided that’s what I want, for my mental vacation world. In my world, you’ll get a TV that’s also a teleporter. For example, if there’s some sci-fi show and you want to join the crew on their spaceship, you can. Or if it’s a show set in a fancy castle with everyone in elegant clothes, you could put yourself right in the middle of it and you’d look just like them.”

            “How is that any different from being in a movie or a drama?”

            “You’re not actually the people you play in a drama, obviously.”

            Fuma likes that dating your best friend doesn’t feel entirely too different from being friends with him. Once you get past the severe awkwardness of transitioning between two predetermined relationship functions, that is.

            “Ah, yours looks so good.” Kento spies the contents of Fuma’s bowl before whipping out this mobile. “I want to take a picture.”

            Fuma’s chopsticks are already halfway into the bowl when Kento leans into his side. “Why do we have to be in it? Just take a picture of the ramen.”

            “Idiot, why wouldn’t I take a picture of my hot date? Smile!”

            The rest of Fuma’s protests are cut off as the younger man resignedly allows himself to be dragged into another selfie with his snap-happy companion. He puts on a goofy face which Kento mimics after abandoning his reflexive choice to do an idol face. He goes for his food as soon as Kento allows him.

            Fuma is slurping his noodles when Kento stills conspicuously. Fuma waits for an explanation, but all he gets is Kento suddenly brandishing a pocket knife and pointing it at him.

            “What are you doing?” he asks mildly, nothing on his face betraying the fact that the action nearly made him drop his bowl into his lap.

            Keeping his knife trained on Fuma, Kento uses one hand to bring up his phone. The display shows Kento and Fuma beaming like dorks – and below their faces is a black and a red dot apiece.

            “What the fuck?”

            “Stay right there!” Kento warns him.

            Fuma puts his hands up. “What are you going to do with that, cut me to the bone?” he hisses. He quickly scans the area, thankful that they are at least tucked away in a private booth in a restaurant with only two other patrons.

            “I don’t know what you are!” That Kento’s eyes have become fierce stings, and it frightens him more than the sharp blade pointed in his direction.

            “You’re the one threatening to stab people all of a sudden!”

            “I’m not the red dot! I got this app from Ninomiya-kun! Why would I do that if I’m a robot?”

            “The one that replaced Aiba-kun didn’t know he was one, either.” Fuma shakes his head, trying to regain his composure. “We have to calm down. Put that down, will you, you’re not helping.”

            “No! You’re not Fuma!” Kento accuses.

            Fuma swallows. He thinks back to seeing Aiba in that glass pod and imagines Kento in his place. “We can’t do this here. We have to go—”

            “I’m not going anywhere with you!” Kento raises his phone again, hands shaking so badly that it takes three tries to unlock it.

            Fuma moves to stop him, but his hands halt before they touch Kento. “Do you really want to find out?”

            They stare at each other for what must have been a full minute before Kento moves again, placing his phone between him and Fuma. Neither of them talk – and between the two of them, barely remember to breathe – as Kento checks his screen.

            There’s an unmistakable whimper that slithers out of Kento’s throat. Fuma surprises himself with the force of emotion he feels for a non-sentient _robot_ , all because it’s made to look and act exactly like Kento.

            “Why would he do this?” Kento sounds younger than usual. He drops his phone, letting it clatter onto the counter, and that’s when Fuma sees the red dot on his picture. He grabs Kento’s phone, inspecting it like it were an extraterrestrial object.

            “He was supposed to tell me,” Kento says. He looks at the fake Fuma in front of him, triple-checking his cell phone as if it would change its mind if scrutinized long enough.

            “I didn’t – believe me, I didn’t leave,” the fake Fuma says. “I’m me. This isn’t – this thing is broken.” He unknowingly echoes Kento’s words when he and Fuma first discovered what happened with Shori and Sou.

            Kento is deaf to his current companion’s assertions, as he drowns in his own morose thoughts about deception from the one person he cares about the most. He thinks his whole heart caves in on itself when he realizes he doesn’t know which “Fuma” asked him on a date – if it’s the boy he’d been treading closer to for years now, or a cruelly convincing projection of him. (He also has a very quick, visceral urge to gag, because _oh my god,_ _did I make out with a robot?_ )

            However betrayed he feels, he knows he has to bring his partner back. “I have to find him,” he says to himself.

            “I’m right here!” the Fuma lookalike insists. “I don’t give a fuck what that app says, _I’m me_. Look at me. It was _me_ you held after I took that picture of Shori and Matsushima. It was _me_ who took forever to get the courage to call it ‘dating’ instead of ‘hanging out.’ That’s me. I remember all of it.” It’s as if the android breaks character with his wild-eyed declarations, desperate to persuade. “I remember that rehearsal when we first met.”

            “Stop talking.” A part of Kento wonders why and how they gave this robot all of Fuma’s memories, the same way they went as far as giving Aiba’s robot what resembled blood and bones.

            “You stood out to me, even if didn’t get why back then. I thought it must have been because you were charming, maybe, or that you were trying so hard that it would be mortifying for anyone else.”

            “Don’t do this. I’m begging you, stop,” Kento interrupts him, weakly. “When you say those words, looking like that, it doesn’t help.” He buries his face in his hands, focusing on regulating his breathing, at least. Eventually, he says, “There’s one way you can help me.”

 

 

 

            Fake-Fuma, as he is thusly named, suggests to seek out Fake-Shori directly and prime him for information on his whereabouts. While Fake-Fuma betrays nothing of the secret that the real Fuma kept from Kento, he says that this is the route he’d take if he wanted to know more about the program.

            Together, they approach the Shori replica under the guise of weighing their options. The robot asks, “Do you remember talking about this with me?”

            “A little,” Fake-Fuma hedges. He tries not to divulge too much with Kento listening, not wanting to clue him in that they’re referring to a much earlier conversation that the original Fuma and Shori had.

            “I didn’t tell you about the replacements then.”

            “You may have brought it up,” Fake-Fuma says vaguely. He realizes he has no recollection of any follow-up conversation that the original Fuma may have had with this version of Shori. It must have been intentional, he thinks, to keep him in the dark about his true identity.

            In the end, Fake-Shori takes them to a building that’s closer to the city center than Aiba’s had been. Inside, it bears a similarity to the first one Kento and Fuma had visited, the layout of the lobby and the logo familiar to both Kento and Fake-Fuma.

            Kento goes directly up to one of the employees in a suit and tie and asks, “Is this where they’re all being kept? Fuma, Shori, Matsushima?”

            Fake-Shori doesn’t bat an eye at that. “You’ve found out about Fuma-kun, then.” He nods at Fake-Fuma and says, “Guards, if I could trouble you. This model isn’t authorized for self-awareness.”

            Kento turns back to Fake-Shori. “What did you say?”

            A couple of security guards flank Fake-Fuma on either side and forcibly drag him away.

            “Where are you taking him?” Kento demands, watching with creeping panic as Fake-Fuma struggles uselessly against much larger men.

            “His memories just need to be rebooted,” Fake-Shori says, placing a hand on Kento’s shoulder intended to be soothing. It’s something the real Shori has done for him in the past. “He’ll be fine.”

            Kento isn’t quite sure what to do with the unexpected, fierce protectiveness he feels over Fake-Fuma, but he holds himself back and lets them take him away. “Who are you?” Kento asks, confused by the seeming authority that this robot appears to have. “What did you do with Shori and the others?”

            “I didn’t do anything to anyone,” Fake-Shori says, in that composed manner adopted from its original source. “As a human, I joined the program back in March, back when it became too much to cope with. And I asked that I – the replacement – not lose any of my memories. I wanted both sides of me to be fully aware of my circumstances. Did you know, there’s not a lot of replacements like me? Self-aware, I mean.”

            Kento tries to solve why Shori would have wanted some robot that looks like him to know he was a robot. Was that his exit strategy, outside of having an anchor like Aiba had with Nino? He puts the thought aside for later consideration. For now, he wonders aloud, “Why didn’t Shori come to me before he resorted to this?”

            “I’m sorry we didn’t consult you. I told Sou about it, and we decided we’d do it together.”

            “Don’t lie to me,” Kento snaps, harsh in a way he could never be with the actual Shori. “Matsushima wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t want this for himself, and he definitely wouldn’t want this for you.” He catches himself. “Damn it, I mean for Shori.”

            “You don’t know everything about Sou, no matter how much you and Fuma-kun buy into the parenthood angle. But you shouldn’t feel bad about that, it’s not like I understand either of you as well as I thought, either.” Fake-Shori’s perfect face smiles with human-looking sadness. “The truth is, I told Fuma-kun about the program, too. I thought he’d tell you about it and that you guys would try to talk us out of it, if not follow us. But he never went to you with it. I should have known he would never want to be a burden to anyone.”

            “Fuma knew about this all along?” Kento breathes out. Then, “Is that why? Did he go to you to get into the system, to try to get through to the real Shori?” He shakes his head at his own theory. “That can’t be it. Why wouldn’t he just break Shori and Matsushima out of here, like we did with Aiba-kun?”

            Fake-Shori chuckles at that. “He’s too smart for that. I’m afraid you’re outnumbered here, and the staff here know better than they did at the first facility you visited.” Fake-Shori looks around leadingly, and Kento only then starts to process how surrounded – and how alone – he is. “It’s easy enough to keep you here and send out a replacement for you. You’d like it, too, from what we’ve gathered from Fuma-kun’s memories.”

            Kento can see it in his mind, how Fuma – his human Fuma – must have been in the exact same position he’s in at that moment, facing a predicament accompanied only by a lack of probable solutions. It’s just like Fuma to take this upon himself, despite having learned over and over again how much better it is when they work together. The conclusion he comes to, unfortunately, isn’t much better.

            “I’ll take his place,” he says. “Please, let Fuma go, and let me to talk to Shori and Matsushima. Give me a world that connects to theirs.”

            “You’ll try and do whatever it is Fuma-kun’s trying to do?”

            “He shouldn’t have gone here in the first place.” Kento wets his lips nervously. “I’ll pay whatever fees I need to – I’ll pay it two times over if you let us swap.”

            “That’s a very strange offer,” Fake-Shori says. “I can see the company president considering it, but still. How strange.”

            Kento acts like his counteroffer is already underway. “When you let Fuma go, you’ll need to wipe any memories of this – make him forget all about androids and dream worlds. Make him forget talking to Shori about this, about what happened with Aiba-kun and Ninomiya-kun. You can do that, right?”

            “It’s doable, but you can’t authorize someone else’s memory erasure, no matter how long you’ve been work partners.”

            “I don’t see why not. I’m taking his place.” Kento reasons, “If you don’t take those memories from him, you’ll deal with an endless cycle of switching between the two of us, because he’d never give up trying to solve this himself. It’s only if you reset his memories that he’ll be out of your hair for good.”

            Fake-Shori smiles at him. “Clever. You’ve always been the calculating one, really.”

            Kento brushes off the backhanded compliment. “One last thing. You are never to tell Marius about any of this. Do not get him involved.”

            “I understand.” With more believable affectation of kindness, Fake-Shori asks, “Do think about anything you wish to do before we put you through to the system. I can tell you that Fuma-kun made full use of this opportunity when offered. Otherwise, you risk your subconscious rejecting the system if you hold onto any strong regrets.”

            Kento considers the wealth of things he wants to do, the things he needs to say. He thinks through them carefully, because he can’t afford for his plans to fall through. He needs to get hooked into the system successfully, to talk to Shori and Sou. And once they’re all together, they can get themselves out from the inside. He just needs to remember his goal, and not get sucked into the fantasy world like Aiba did.

            For the rest of the day, Kento tediously irons out contract details and works in as many foolproof contingencies he can. He’s given multiple reassurances about mental networks and how they’ll be mapped with Shori and Sou’s.

            The most powerful lapse in courage he has comes late in the journey, when he’s already being led to a room where several glass pods are lined up together. All at once, he’s face-to-face with Fuma, Shori, and Sou, the three of them all in a row. If not for their eyes shut peacefully, they look like they’re lined up waiting for their cue backstage, with the way they’re arranged.

            “Everything will proceed as you wish by the end of the day,” Fake-Shori reassures him, when he catches Kento staring at Fuma’s figure strapped in restraints and wires. “Your message will be delivered.”

            Kento takes a deep breath and tears his gaze away from Fuma. He can’t be distracted. Fuma will be out of here in no less than a few hours, just as discussed. And by tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, he’ll be waltzing out of here as well, with Shori and Sou next to him.

            After Kento is secured in his pod, Shori’s replacement thoughtfully thinks to himself, _Those two can be surprisingly similar._

            Wandering eyes land on a fifth, empty spot.

 

 

 

            Fuma spots a conspicuous piece of paper folded peeking out from the corner of his bag, a pristine white square folded into the front pocket.

            He fishes it out and unfolds it. When it’s laid out flat, it’s mostly bare. He flips the paper front and back to see if there’s anything else, but all there is is his name in familiar penmanship, along with three other words scribbled inside a childish outline of a heart.

            “Idiot.” Despite the fact that this has never happened before, not exactly, he thinks, “You’ll never change, will you?” He grins with warmth that can’t be manufactured.


End file.
